The OpportunityThe Plant Mechanical Engineer is responsible for providing mechanical engineering expertise to support the safe, reliable, and efficient operation and maintenance of fixed plant and processing facilities within a mining operation. This role focuses on the engineering, reliability, optimization, maintenance, and continuous improvement of mechanical equipment and systems across crushing, conveying, processing, material handling, and associated plant infrastructure.
The successful candidate will work closely with Operations, Maintenance, Reliability, Electrical/Instrumentation, Projects, and Engineering teams to identify equipment risks, develop engineering solutions, improve plant availability, and ensure mechanical assets are maintained and operated in accordance with applicable safety, regulatory, and industry standards.
Responsibilities- Provide day-to-day mechanical engineering support to mining processing and fixed-plant operations.
- Troubleshoot mechanical equipment failures and develop practical, cost-effective engineering solutions.
- Evaluate equipment performance and identify opportunities to improve plant throughput, availability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Develop engineering calculations, equipment specifications, technical reports, scopes of work, and design documentation.
- Review mechanical designs, drawings, vendor documentation, and engineering deliverables.
- Provide technical guidance for modifications, upgrades, replacements, and plant improvement projects.
- Support management of mechanical engineering changes and ensure appropriate technical documentation is maintained.
- Provide engineering support for crushers, screens, feeders, conveyors, pumps, compressors, gearboxes, mills, material handling systems, and other fixed-plant mechanical equipment.
- Assess equipment condition and develop recommendations for repair, refurbishment, replacement, or redesign.
- Support equipment selection, sizing, specification, and commissioning.
- Review equipment criticality and failure modes and develop appropriate reliability strategies.
- Participate in equipment inspections, condition assessments, and root-cause failure investigations.
- Identify mechanical integrity risks and recommend corrective and preventative actions.
- Partner with Maintenance and Reliability teams to improve equipment reliability and reduce unplanned downtime.
- Analyze equipment failure data and maintenance history to identify recurring problems and improvement opportunities.
- Lead or support Root Cause Analysis (RCA), Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), and reliability improvement initiatives.
- Develop and optimize preventive and predictive maintenance strategies for critical mechanical assets.
- Support development of maintenance strategies, job plans, spare-parts requirements, and equipment standards.
- Monitor key mechanical reliability and maintenance performance indicators.
- Support feasibility studies, capital projects, plant upgrades, and expansion projects from concept through commissioning.
- Develop technical scopes and specifications for mechanical equipment and engineering services.
- Review contractor and vendor proposals and provide technical recommendations.
- Participate in design reviews, constructability reviews, factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing, and commissioning activities.
- Ensure engineering solutions consider safety, maintainability, lifecycle cost, operability, and production requirements.
The above duties and responsibilities represent the nature and level of work assigned and are not necessarily all-inclusive.
Education and Experience- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related engineering discipline.
- Professional engineering registration or eligibility for registration is preferred and may be required depending on jurisdiction and role responsibilities.
- 5+ years of mechanical engineering experience, preferably within mining, minerals processing, heavy industry, mineral processing, or a similar asset-intensive environment.
- Demonstrated experience supporting fixed-plant mechanical equipment and industrial processing systems.
- Experience with equipment such as crushers, conveyors, screens, pumps, mills, feeders, gearboxes, and material handling systems.
- Strong understanding of mechanical equipment reliability, maintenance practices, failure analysis, and asset management.
- Experience developing engineering scopes, specifications, calculations, reports, and technical recommendations.
- Experience supporting capital projects, equipment upgrades, or plant modifications.
- Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot complex mechanical problems and develop practical solutions.
- Experience working in an operational environment with a strong focus on safety and production.
